Snowball

Thanks, will have a look.

all feedback welcome, it is always good to hear from people who have used the service.

many thanks

Hi

WE have a family function to attend and family cant look after our goldie. any recommendations for a good kennel boarding place in south east melbourne , narre warren way - will travel for a good place. So scary, no idea of any from a personal recommendation and need somewhere for at least 10 days, so will need to be a good place which will take care of our goldie

all help much appreciated

snowball :D

http://au.news.yahoo.com/world/a/-/world/10107612/martyred-seals-dog-refuses-to-leave-his-side-in-final-journey

This just brought tears to my eyes.

What a loyal dog - hope he has someone to care for him now that his owner has died.

Just wanted to say that when I first bought my puppy I had heaps of information about hips, elbows etc, but didnt really know how to interpret it.

Asking the breeders is one thing, but the reality is when you start out you dont know who is a good breeder or not, and asking them if the scores are good, well, my suspicious mind would say, that they will may well tell me anything to sell the puppy. I am the sort of person who would find all the numbers / stats on the net ( I even found my dogs grandparents) but at that stage, still didnt know what to do with all that information iykwim.

nope, the space is blank. the pet food store guy said not to worry as it doest go off really as it is dry food. hmm, shouldnt have bought it me thinks!!! it seemed to good a deal and maybey it was.

There are batch numbers but no best before date

The best dry food you can afford and some lovely bones. We gave ours chicken frames and eagle pack for large breed puppies daily.

If you are interested a BARF diet is great, and you can do heaps of research on here.

But weetbix and canned food are crap for a 5 month old and it is time to feed your gorgeous goldie food to build her up as she grows. any pictures?

I love golides

Hi

I just bought some lab royal canine large dry food on a supper special. The owner said I could return if there was a problem.

Now, there is no use by date on the pack, is that normal? should it have a date, maybey there is a reason it was on super special??

any feedback much appreciated

snowball

OK our golden retriever seems to have lost some of her manners lately.

We just let her out in the backyard for a wee break and when my husband called her inside she refused to come. This has been increasing lately, where in the past she came.

He is not in the backyard standing/chasing her around trying to get her, she is doing zoomies around him. What is the best method / what should he do , chase her, tire her out, ignore her, ?????

This is getting really bad, how do we get her to come and what do we do when she does zoomies and tries to escape.

Snowball

Thanks everyone for your lovely detailed replies.

Sorry I am in a rush, I have to go to work soon, ( half a day today) but

- she is one year old

- we will try and up the mental stimulation, but to be honest to me she just looks like she is having fun when she is doing it

= by retrieving, do you mean the casual throwing things in the backyard to bring back or is there a place to go for proper retireving with other dogs sort of practice

I really must rush off, but thanks again and will check in later.

Snowball

just adding - yes we walk her daily.

oh Indigirl I dont know wether to laugh or cry . I had hoped to here some more positive goldie digging stories. Lucky they are so beautiful - right :D

Providing a digging area might be the solution.... how does that work, do you have to fill up the hole regularly, how do you contain the size so it doesnt spread? A clam shell would quickly get emptied of sand sorry for the obutse questions, but I need some solutions, before I pull my hair out and cry

I do love her........ but boy it can be difficult at times

OK, help please....

Our Goldie is a digger, she loves to dig up the backyard and it is driving me crazy. When I work she is in an enclosed dog run (tiled) so no digging then.

When we are at home she is in the house with us, except for toilet stops, or a bit of a run outside on the lawn. Sometimes she digs and I catch her at it and I tell her off. She stops and will run away or stops and does zoomies. The other time I dont see her, just find the hole.

Today she dug after a 45 min morning walk, half an hour later she was outside and I found her digging, I told her off, she ran away then when I thought I was gone, she went straigth back to digging.

I am really at my wits end. She gets walked every day, she is inside with us most of the time. I only work 2 days a week. She has kongs, and other toys in the dog run, she has toys at home.

What can i do to tell her digging is not acceptable?

many thanks, it is really starting to get to me.

Snowball

hmm, probably a medium walk, not power and not stroll. The thing I worry about with the larger breeds is hip problems etc and I have read too much excericse too soon can possibly exacebrate this later.... therefore the question.

It is hard knowing what is the best to do for them, she would quite happily race around all day if we let her, non stop

Thanks for your reply. Not sure if I can get in touch with the breeder at the moment, therefore the question on here.

She is getting 30 min leash time at the moment, so sounds about right, although I would love to walk furhter if we could.

thanks

Snowball

Hi

Our goldie loves going for walks. Can goldie breeders or those in the know please tell me how long is a good safe time to take her for her daily walk. Currently we do half an hour, can we increase that?

We will be quite busy in the next month or so, so would ideally love to tire her out so she can go in her run for the day, but dont want to walk her too much and have problems later iywkim

any recommnedations on a good safe walking time appreciated.

thanks

Snowball

Thanks everyone for you replies. Will check out the websites.

It is lovely to have such a great website to ask questions and get answers. It is really appreciated

we build a beautiful dog run a while ago for our goldie, tiled, drainage, the whole works, but it look like we are moving.

Our new house wont have the same convienient side space to block off, so what are the affordable dog run options - she has a great big kennel, but needs to be contained whilst I work (part-time) as she would destroy the back yard.

I am getting a bit stressed about it all, but need to come up with a quick solution

any help/websites etc appreciated. My husband is quite handy if that helps ( not an expert, but happy to have a go)

many thanks

snowball

Hmm, not sure how destructive she could get, we try to minimise the opportunities Do you have any links for pre-fabricated ones? Hard to know how much to spend, I guess it depends on what you get for your money iywkim. We have a couple of thousand set aside if need be, but obviously want to keep costs low, but also make sure she is in a secure area she cant damage or accidently damage herself.

Thanks

snowball

we build a beautiful dog run a while ago for our goldie, tiled, drainage, the whole works, but it look like we are moving.

Our new house wont have the same convienient side space to block off, so what are the affordable dog run options - she has a great big kennel, but needs to be contained whilst I work (part-time) as she would destroy the back yard.

I am getting a bit stressed about it all, but need to come up with a quick solution

any help/websites etc appreciated. My husband is quite handy if that helps ( not an expert, but happy to have a go)

many thanks

snowball

My golden retriever got a tennis ball from somewhere, and she loves it. carries it around, throws it and chases it etc... but is it safe? I worry it could somehow get stuck in her throat? or break up? any thoughts?

many thanks

snowball

This sounds like the tip of the iceberg, and I suspect a very controlling man. There is not much you can do for your daughter but to make sure you keep the lines of communication open, boost her self esteem, praise her where she has strenghts, be there for her, tell her you love her always and want her to be happy.

Try hard not to alienate him, so that you get to see your daughter still, if he is the type of man I have seen before, he will be only to pleased to have an exucuse to cut you out of her life so he has more control.

Make sure she knows if the relationship gets too much you will always be three for her and point out some resources womens shelters etc that she can contact if she doesnt want to tolk to you (you GP should be able to id some for you)

If I have read the situation wrong, and this is just a one off or he is just a normal jerk, than I am sorry and please dont take offence.

I have seen a friend go through it, it is very very hard for the woman to make the break and with my friend it took years of her saying she needed to ,before she had the courage to leave the controlling jerk. emotional and fianncial control is a type of abuse and it is hard to watch, but I kept on listening when she wanted to talk and encouragad her in a general way, and boosted all the positives to make her feel good. I also gave her some postitive self esteem books, but she was open to that and happy to read it.

anyway, hope I have read the situation wrong, apologies if I have, I have just seen it happen myself, and it starts slow and the it escalates slowly until he had total control.

good luck,

snowball

thanks for the info

HI

Just curious, when will my goldie have all her adult teeth?

thanks in advance

Snowball

hmm, becks the leave it command makes sense, will try that. She has an undestanding of leave it, but we need to reenforce it, being a retriever, there has been plenty of chances to say leave it

thanks everyone for your replies, it all is useful for a first time dog owner.

snowball

hmm, things to ponder.

She has lots of chew toys and she goes to obedience training most weekends. We walk her and she is usually inside with us, so has lots of company and atention.

I guess I want her to learn some items are out of boudns so to speak, how do we do that? Ignoring her wont work, she wil l happily chew the irrigation in front of you for as long as she desires ( and it can be a long time- we tried that )

oh dear, as I say, lucky she is soooo cute

snowball

Hi

Our 8 month old goldie has discovered the yummy taste of garden irrigation and the joys of digging. when we catch her in the act we say a firm "no" and by the collar walk her in a circle and then redirect her to something else in the yard...... well, that is the theory

What happens is that she hears the "no" then as we walk to her to stop her digging or get the irrigation pipe out of her mouth, she will then do zoomies in our backyard, evading us catching her. We then have to try for about 5 minutes until we get her and get pipe out of her mouth etc......

So any suggestions, what could we do better to 1. stop the behaviour of ripping up our irrigation, digging holes, chewing what is not appropriate and 2. stop the zoomie when we want to grab her ( the other day it was scary as she was doing zoomies while we trying to get some sharp metal stuff out of her mouth, no idea where she ransacked that from

Any advice really really appreciated.

Snowball